


Encyclopedic Knowledge

by katharhino



Category: The Dalemark Quartet - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Academia, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-01
Updated: 2013-06-01
Packaged: 2017-12-13 16:25:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/826339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katharhino/pseuds/katharhino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the DWJ Ficathon, prompt: Libby Beer and Alhammit, who are they, really?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Encyclopedic Knowledge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [betony](https://archiveofourown.org/users/betony/gifts).



> ... who didn't mind that I somehow managed not to answer the question in the prompt after all.

**Libby Beer and Alhammit**

Libby Beer and Alhammit (also called Old Ammet) were cult figures or local demigods, mention of whom seems to be commonly found in lore and tradition of South Dalemark dating from about ___ to ___. Their worship – if such it can be called, given that there were no official temples, clergy, or canon that we know of – was extensive to the point of being omnipresent during the given dates. In fact, there is little mention of ritual at all aside from the annual festival celebrated at Holand, but that casual influence permeated the society as is seen in naming patterns of the time.

[Here there was a long and extremely tedious description of the festival.]

While both Libby Beer and Alhammit have features in common with harvest or fertility gods and rites from various cultures, their exact origin is unknown.53 The most likely explanation is perhaps an organic growth from the needs of a primarily agricultural society, like many others. On the surface the implications of the festival images of fecundity may be obvious. But their secondary associations with the ocean add at least a passing insight into the geographical demands of Pre-Unification South Dalemark. If a more logical modern mind can demand how a god may be both grain and ocean, this paradox would have seemed imminently suitable to a society living on the edge in more ways than one.

53\. There has been a suggestion (see Clenson and others) that Libby Beer and Alhammit may be identified with the two gods of the Islands usually referred to as the Earthshaker and She Who Raised the Islands, this author sees no reason to confuse the matter by forcing a resemblance which has so little evidence in reality. The names are not at all similar in translation, and while Island literature is vague at best, the Earthshaker seems to have been associated with horses, which were never an emblem of Alhammit anywhere else.

* * *

"And that's all it says. The next section is all about ballads." Maewen looked up from the volume. "Well?"

Mitt said, "Huh" and snorted, but he didn't seem as amused as she had thought he would be. After a while he added, "Some people don't pay attention to what's right around them, I guess."


End file.
